Flight and Flying, Period 5, Thursday 6/19

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

The students would likely notice something very unusual about the Danger Shop today as they arrived. Most notably that it was empty. There wasn't any kind of ship anywhere in sight. There was nothing. Just Murdock with his arms crossed over his chest, looking rather devious.

"And now for something completely different," he droned. "You," he pointed towards the class at large, "will choose your own ships today. I recommend you pick something you're most comfortable with. Because we're going to crash those babies," he grinned deviously.

"The first rule of piloting, is any landing you can walk away from is a good one. So that's what we're going to do. Your primary goal is to make sure you get out safe. If you can swing it without getting a single scratch, even better. Second to that is minimizing the amount of damage inflicted upon your craft. If you ever wind up crashing in hostile territory, you want your craft to be repairable. Or at the very least, have enough working parts so you can retro engineer something else to escape in."

"How you choose to crash them is completely up to you. You can experience engine failure, extensive damage from an enemy craft, or," he winked at Reno, "you can just fly straight into a mountain. Once done, the Danger Shop will provide each of you with an outcome statistic and survival probability." Of course, the safety protocols were in place, so nobody would actually suffer any injuries, but Murdock thought it might be amusing to let them sweat that a bit. Make the whole scenario just that more believable.

"Alrighty kids!" he slapped his hands together loudly, "Let's get our ships and let's crash like you've never crashed before. Oh, and I should add, you'd better crash sooner rather than later. Take too long, and the program will kick in and throw something random at ya. Or heck," he shrugged, "just wait for it and see what you get. Could be a fun challenge," he grinned.

(ocd-edy! in a sec...)

Comments

Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

How did you go out? Stuck in some trees or a fireball of doom? Mod your crash results.

Re: Crash!

[raspberryturk]

Reno was going to fly that chopper around until the danger shop threw something good and random at him.

It was a shame he wasn't expecting that giant foot to fall from the sky on top of him like that.

Probability of survival? Zero.

If asked later, Reno would probably tell you that he was not dead, he was pinin' for the fjords.

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

"Wow. That was...really different." Murdock wasn't staring. Not really.

Re: Crash!

[raspberryturk]

"Sometimes," Reno grumped as he crawled out of the fake wreckage, "I really hate this place, zoto."

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

He had to chuckle a little at that. "I hear that," he moved closer to Reno and offered a hand to help him up.

Re: Crash!

[mrodneymckay.livejournal.com]

Once his jet was in the right position for what he wanted, Rodney cut off the engines. He attempted to angle his descent so that he could glide down and skid into a relatively safe landing. His main hope, after not sustaining any injuries to himself, was that the jet would be reparable.

It was good in theory. He just wasn't skilled enough to pull it off.

He did manage to hit the ground without turning into a fireball, at least. Sadly, both wings were ripped off the jet and, had the safeties not been in place, he would've had a few broken bones. On the bright side, the engine was intact.

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

Murdock cringed a little as he watched the jet rip apart. "Well, that's not flying again," he remarked casually. "Can salvage some parts from it though. Good job, Rodney!" he grinned.

Re: Crash!

[mrodneymckay.livejournal.com]

Rodney, a bit dazed from the bad landing, just sort of waved his hand in acknowledgment.

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

Murdock grinned and waved back. Another survivor! Whoo!

Re: Crash!

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

John couldn't bring himself to willingly crash of his own accord.

He could understand crashing when things went wrong, but he couldn't very well tell the machine how he wanted to crash when he really really didn't want to crash.

Or maybe he just didn't like being told he had to crash.

John landed the plane and survived.

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

And there would be an instructor giving John A Very Pointed Look. "I think you forgot something there, buddy."

Re: Crash!

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"Look, I survived," John grinned.

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

"True, but that wasn't the point." Murdock, unlike John, was not grinning. In fact, he looked rather annoyed. "I can understand being wary of wanting to crash, but as a pilot you've got to realize that it's a possiblity. If you were to crash, would you be able to handle it? Or would you panic and be unable to save yourself? And those who were with you?"

Glaring a bit, he wrapped his arms around himself and waited for John's response. He was half-tempted to make John do the run over.

Re: Crash!

[solo_sword]

Jaina ran through her course, keeping it nice and hard, but the thing was, she couldn't just let herself crash. It went against everything she'd ever been taught and after what happened at Sernpidal she really didn't want to chance anything like that in the middle of her workshop.

She landed her ship, a little relieved considering it was just the Danger Shop.

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

Murdock groaned quietly. What was it with the kids today? "Jaina?" he called out, "I think you missed a key point of the exercise."

Re: Crash!

[solo_sword]

"Yep," she said, nodding. "I'm not crashing."

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

"Would you care to explain your reasons? This class has been pretty easy-going from what I see and now suddenly there's a problem. I'd like to know why."

After tussling with John (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/1802497.html?thread=111835137#t111835137), Murdock wasn't in the best of moods. Frustrated and a bit annoyed, he wasn't keen on the idea of having to go through it all again.

Re: Crash!

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

Kaylee flew carefully, surely, and steadily. She didn't go too fast, nor did she joyride like she'd known too many kids her age to try.

She weren't the fanciest pilot, and she'd never have a gift for it, but she couldn't, in good conscience, crash on purpose. Her landing was a bit rough, but each and every time anything bumped or looked like she might crash, she went through the procedures she knew to make it better. It weren't like she was planning on bein' in the pilot's seat if this did happen to her, anyways.

She did, however, check her engine first thing after landing (such as it was.)

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

A trip to the bar was looking very likely at this point. Yet another student who didn't do as instructed. Murdock was about ready to pull his hair out. What little of it he had. As it was, he fidgeted with his cap several times, finally flipping it around backwards. Felt better that way for some reason.

"Kaylee," if it sounded like there was a note of exhaustion in there, it probably was. "Please tell me why you didn't crash. I know it's rough for this class, all things considered, but it's important to piloting. Not mindless crashing, mind you, but knowing how to handle the situation. Please tell me you know that."

God, he was so tired right now. And really wanting to have to fight another student.

Re: Crash!

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

"'Cause I couldn't, sir," she said, standing very straight, almost like she was mimicking someone on attention. "This vessel didn't do nothin' to me to deserve that kind of abuse. She's too pretty, and there ain't no reason to crash her. An' I get the lession, sir, I do, but I ain't lookin' to be a pilot, you know that. If my ship's goin' down, I'm gonna be in her engine room fixin' her, not the cockpit. Didn't seem right to hurt the girl to try to learn somethin' that ain't gonna be necessary for me to know in the future, plus, honestly, sir, it don't seem like too fun. I known too many soldiers and stupid kids gone on joyrides who messed themselves up but good. I ain't lookin' to copy that."

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

Well. At least she had a concise answer. "Okay. I get that. And that is all a very valid reason. Unfortunately," he could seriously smack himself in the head right about now, "I've already promised repercussions for two of your fellow students for not following instructions. I don't have much of a choice, now. Sorry, Kaylee."

He was sorry. Really. Kaylee was a good kid and just as she said, not going for piloting. It didn't seem fair, but it was less fair to let her off and not Jaina and John as well.

"I'm gonna have to give you detention. Or somethin'. I ain't quite figured out what yet." Because he was too frazzled to think of much of anything at the moment. "I'll have to get back to you on it. Sorry. Really, I am."

Re: Crash!

[the_merriest]

Rikku opted for what she kinda figured would happen eventually: engine failure of a random variety. Actually she told the Danger Room to just break some pieces and have some things fall off or rust out, however it felt like doing it.

She heard the sputter and tried to slooooooooooow down, aiming for a nice flat area. Gravity had other ideas.

She steered the best she could, given how bad the steering was, anyway, and kept the ship from doing a complete nosedive.

The crash results said that she would have ended up with some serious injuries, but would have probably survived.

She was now trying to quiz the Danger Room on how severely the other areas of the ship had been damaged, and the survival odds for anyone who might have been there at the time of impact.

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

Murdock watched with interest. He nodded as he watched the ship bank out of a nosedive. The ship was damaged, obviously, but Rikku had handled it well.

He bounced over to her, "Nicely handled, Rikku. So is this what you usually get around in?" he asked, looking the ship over.

Re: Crash!

[the_merriest]

She nodded, looking around. "Yeah, this is ... this is what we have at home. It's slow and clunky, but, you know."

"Did you see what happened to the lower levels?" she asked, shrugging awkwardly. "How badly were the cargo bays trashed, I mean? I tried to -- keep them from getting ripped up but I'm not so sure I did."

Re: Crash!

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

"They got kinda dented," he replied. Meaning that a goodly section of the bottom had been ripped off, leaving inner sections of the ship exposed. He squatted down, peering at the underside of the ship, "I think it's fixable?" With a lot, a lot of work. Duct tape wasn't going to cut it for this.